1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portrait drawing apparatus for allowing patterns of the eyes, nose and other facial parts to be selected and combined as desired in order to draw a portrait.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional portrait drawing apparatuses generally comprise a display unit that displays portrait image data, a memory unit that stores facial part pattern data, and an input unit used to determine the facial parts with which to draw a portrait. As shown in FIG. 7, the display unit comprises a display screen 81 having a facial part name display area 83 and a portrait drawing area 82. The facial part name display area 83 displays such facial part names 84 as the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, ears, hair, facial contour, mustache, wrinkles and sideburns with which to construct a likeness. The portrait drawing area 82 is an area in which the operator draws a portrait using the facial parts whose names are listed in the area 83.
With the conventional portrait drawing apparatus, the operator selects appropriate facial parts from the facial part names 84 in the facial part name display area 83, and arranges suitably the selected facial parts in the portrait drawing area 82. More specifically, the operator first determines the facial part with which to construct the portrait (step 91 in FIG. 8). When the facial part (e.g., the nose) is selected, candidates of the selected facial part are displayed successively in the "nose" position of the portrait drawing area 82 in FIG. 7 (step 92)
The operator then selects one nose from among the candidates successively overwritten in the "nose" position of the portrait drawing area 82, the selected nose best representing the characteristic of the model's nose (steps 94 and 95).
With the nose thus selected and positioned, other facial parts still need to be selected (NO in step 96). Thus step 91 is reached again, and another facial part is selected (steps 92 through 95).
In this manner, the remaining facial parts are selected and positioned. When all facial parts have been selected (YES in step 96), the drawing of the portrait comes to an end.
One disadvantage of the prior art portrait drawing apparatus is this: because each facial part needs to be selected from all those previously stored candidates of the part, the candidates being displayed successively in a predetermined order, it takes time for the operator to select the most likely candidate. In addition, the operator must be fully cognizant of the model's facial characteristics in order to make suitable decisions on the facial part candidates displayed. The more facial parts to be determined, the more time required to draw the portrait.